I first learned about mesquite flour a couple of years ago through Heidi’s blog and her famous mesquite and chocolate chip cookies. I was very intrigued by the new flour, but never got around to using it until a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing the shelves of a health food store and there I found it again.

I had to buy it, of course, and experiment with it. When I opened the bag, I got a wave of cinnamon, chocolate and coffee notes. Warm and lovely.

Come to find out, mesquite meal, which comes from the mesquite tree, has been an integral part of the daily diet of Native Americans for centuries. It has a low glycemic-index and is rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and zinc, and the amino acid lysine.

I have been using it in many different preparations. J’s favorite seems to be the mesquite and chocolate chip pancakes I have been making on the weekends with the mesquite flour, palm sugar, hemp milk and lots of mini chocolate chips. (Palm sugar is also another one of my favorite latest discoveries). Heidi was on to something with her cookies as the warm spicy aroma of the mesquite goes perfectly with chocolate.

I always like to have logs of unbaked cookie dough in the freezer for those unexpected afternoon treats and yes, sometimes even a bribing technique. So a few days ago, I spent an entire afternoon mixing cookie dough batches and freezing them.

Amongst other more traditional cookies like chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and lemon sugar, I thought the slightly sour raspberries would be great with the aroma of mesquite and the texture of the cocoa nibs. I even dried my own raspberries in the dehydrator, which I hadn’t used in months.

Of course, you should know by now that the cookies are gluten free and no one even knew it. Perfect.

Cream together the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light. Add the egg and mix. Scrape the mixture well. Whisk together the superfine brown rice flour, tapioca starch, mesquite flour, salt and baking soda. Add the dry to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Fold in the dried raspberries and cocoa nib.

Dump the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and shape it into a log. Wrap the log with the parchment and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Cut the log into 1/4″ disks and bake at 350F for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden.

Your gluten-free baking looks like so much fun! I almost wish we had such possibilities round here. For the time being, I keep enjoying genuine wheat flour straight from the mill – it’s so pure that it makes me want to make yeast dough all the time just to knead it and feel its lightness.

Oh my these look absolutely delish! I haven’t heard of mesquite flour, would love to try this recipe if I can get my hands on them in London. I’m from Singapore, and palm sugar is widely used in Asian cooking and desserts, interesting that you’ve used it in pancakes, will try that sometime soon!

Wow, wow, wow.These look terrific. I love the use of cocoa nibs. I’ve never even heard of mesquite flour and I’m not sure we can get it here in the UK but I’ll have a look online.Fantastic photography as usual!

Aran, thanks for the link! I ordered some of the flour and hoping it gets here by the weekend. Will definitely let you know how they worked. I am excited because I’ve never baked anything gluten-free so curious to see if I notice any difference. Thanks again, and so glad I found your blog this morning!

I always love your posts so much! I have been battling a gluten intolerance for almost 5 years, and your wonderful recipes always make happy. You’ve inspired me to share my gluten free food advice and start my own blog! I cannot compete with your beautiful creations and photography, but everything helps for us food allergy sufferers :)

Veron- I can’t remember! I dint know how I found te ship( which was super cute) and ordered it in blue and yellow. I tried looking in my inboxes to see I’d I could find their order confirmation email but I couldn’t. Had deleted them. It was a design shop where they do cards, etc. Something like Whisker, Whistler… I can’t believe I didn’t bookmark it! If I find it, I’ll email u ok? Sorry…

Valerie- tapioca starch is the same as tapioca flour. Could you find that in France? If not, you can use cornstarch.

I absolutely love the idea of having unbaked cookie dough logs in the freezer! Why haven’t I been doing that all along? Also, very curious to give this mesquite flour a try. Everything looks great!http://amusebouche-caitlin.blogspot.com/

I made these cookies yesterday and the taste is wonderful, but they spread like the dickens. They were very thin and crispy, not at all like in your photos. I weighed everything exactly, so I’m not sure what happened. They have spread in a way that seems like the batter doesn’t have enough flour. What would you suggest?

I’m with you on the logs of cookie dough “just in case.” So much so, that I unearthed ~5 kinds when I had to move this summer! Whoops! And you’ve intrigued me with the mesquite flour – it sounds absolutely wonderful!

My query is not related to this particular post, delicious as these cookies look!

The other night I made your burnt milk icecream recipe and it turned out great, though I am not sure if I ‘burnt’ the milk enough. What I was a little confused by were the measurements i.e grams of milk, egg, etc as I am used to ozs. I obviously managed to pull the recipe together nonetheless but I would prefer to have some guidelines so I get it right each time. My mother is a huge fan of icecream that has more milk and less cream so I reckon I’ll be making this often :-)

Do you have any guidelines on conversion of measurements? I know an oz. of flour is around 28 grams but what about liquids?

Tamiko- So sorry to hear that… I’m not sure what it could have been. They are barely supposed to spread. My only thought was to have mis-scaled the recipe somehow. This is the same cookie recipe I use all the time with different variations and it works every time. Try it again and let me know.

LoveLife LoveFood- yes, 1 oz is 28.375 grams and you can apply the same principle to liquids. Hope that helped!

I kept inspecting mesquite for some time, but last evening when I saw your post, I placed my order. I will receive it tomorrow together with some yacon syrup I wanted to try as well. I was however wondering why you used so little mesquite flour (proportionally)? Is the taste too strong or will texture suffer?

Anda- 25 grams of mesquite is actually more in volume than what it seems as it is such a light flour. Also, it would make the cookies perhaps soft and I just wanted to add it as a flavor not so much as the “structure” of the cookie. Does it make sense? Kind of like adding cocoa powder.

Aran, i have been learning so much from you with all the different flours. I want to create some of my own recipes and I wonder if there any tips that you can give in terms of ingredients ratio. These are lovely cookies. I found an internet company that does it so I will be ordering it.As always this blog is very inspirational.

Valentina- Makes me happy to hear you are learning along with me because I’m still learning so much too. As for the ratios, you have to play around a little bit. I use a basic GF mix from Cybele Pascal’s book that calls for 4 cups superfine brown rice flour, 1 1/3 cups potato starch and 2/3 tapioca starch. This is 1:1 conversion with wheat flour. This is good to adapt the recipes you already use. Just remember to add xanthan gum.

However, I like to incorporate other grains. I read about them and their characteristics and usually there is a some information on the package as for how much to add to the recipe, etc. So I start with that and then adapt.

Valentina- I didn’t add any xanthan gum to these because they are crumbly and really don’t need the texture xanthan gum provides. If I don’t have to use it, the better. But usually, it’s 1/4-1/2 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour, depending on the recipe. Hope that helps!

Huh..we were gifted a bag of cocoa nibs, and have had zero idea what to make with them, cause just eating straight has been fairly hideous, lol. Gonna have to try these. Wonder if my HFS carried mesquite flour? I’ve never heard of it.

I tried your recipe for an office lunch today (although I modified it quite a bit). Despite the fact that I had posted a huge sign in front of the plate that the cookies were vegan and gluten-free, they were gone in a second. In fact, they were even more popular than other conventional wheat-based cookies at the table. Thank you for your wonderful recipes!

I absolutely adore your blog and I was inspired to try these cookies today. I had the same experience as Tamiko (above) in that my cookies spread out quite dramatically and ended up thin and crispy instead of holding their shape. I’m a professional pastry chef, and I know I scaled the recipe correctly, so I’m wondering what happened. Did you use dark or light brown sugar? Was the butter room temp. when you creamed it? Do you bake the cookies from frozen? Just trying to think of all the variables…let me know what you think. The cookies are still delicious, though! Many thanks!

Briar- I doubled checked the recipe and there are no typos in the amounts. The butter us indeed room temp. This is the same cookie recipe I make a million times with other variations so I know it works. I think the issue is when I say cream the butter and sugar until light. Are you camping it for a long time? I should say cream the butter and sugar until incorporated because it really doesn’t need to be beat that long or it will incorporate too much air and yes, spread too much. The brown sugar is light.

So I will change the wording. Try them again with less creaming. Maybe a minute on medium speed.